Letter: Academic boycott

We are writing to you as members of the scientific community who have
recently supported an academic boycott in the interest of peaceful and constructive
resistance to the racist system of apartheid in South Africa.

A white South African scientist requested to work in our laboratory
at Harvard University. Given the current political situation in South Africa,
there is not a politically neutral response to this request. Calls for a
selective academic boycott have come from the African National Congress
(ANC) and from scientists within South Africa (see especially Nature, vol
320, p 480). These groups support the boycott of …